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  But who?

  I wasn't sure about this, but I had a suspicion that it was none other than the famous Mr Victor Hazel himself, the owner of the land and the pheasants. Mr Hazel was a pie and sausage manufacturer with an unbelievably arrogant manner. He was rich beyond words, and his property stretched for miles along either side of the valley. He was a self-made man with no charm at all and precious few virtues. He loathed all persons of humble station, having once been one of them himself, and he strove desperately to mingle with what he believed were the right kind of folk. He hunted with the hounds and gave shooting-parties and wore fancy waistcoats, and every weekday he drove an enormous black Rolls-Royce past the filling-station on his way to the factory. As he flashed by, we would sometimes catch a glimpse of the great glistening butcher's face above the wheel, pink as a ham, all soft and inflamed from eating too much meat.

  Anyway, yesterday afternoon, right out of the blue, Claud had suddenly said to me, 'I'll be going on up to Hazel's woods again tonight. Why don't you come along?'

  'Who, me?'

  'It's about the last chance this year for pheasants,' he had said. 'The shooting-season opens Saturday and the birds'll be scattered all over the place after that - if there's any left.'

  'Why the sudden invitation?' I had asked, greatly suspicious.

  'No special reason, Gordon. No reason at all.'

  'Is it risky?'

  He hadn't answered this.

  'I suppose you keep a gun or something hidden away up there?'

  'A gun!' he cried, disgusted. 'Nobody ever shoots pheasants, didn't you know that? You've only got to fire a cap-pistol in Hazel's woods and the keepers'll be on you.'

  'Then how do you do it?'

  'Ah,' he said, and the eyelids drooped over the eyes, veiled and secretive.

  There was a long pause. Then he said, 'Do you think you could keep your mouth shut if I was to tell you a thing or two?'

  'Definitely.'

  'I've never told this to anyone else in my whole life, Gordon.'

  'I am greatly honoured,' I said. 'You can trust me completely.'

  He turned his head, fixing me with pale eyes. The eyes were large and wet and ox-like, and they were so near to me that I could see my own face reflected upside down in the centre of each.

  'I am now about to let you in on the three best ways in the world of poaching a pheasant,' he said. 'And seeing that you're the guest on this little trip, I am going to give you the choice of which one you'd like us to use tonight. How's that?'

  'There's a catch in this.'

  'There's no catch, Gordon. I swear it.'

  'All right, go on.'

  'Now, here's the thing,' he said. 'Here's the first big secret.' He paused and took a long suck at his cigarette. 'Pheasants,' he whispered softly, 'is crazy about raisins.'

  'Raisins?'

  'Just ordinary raisins. It's like a mania with them. My dad discovered that more than forty years ago just like he discovered all three of these methods I'm about to describe to you now.'

  'I thought you said your dad was a drunk.'

  'Maybe he was. But he was also a great poacher. Gordon. Possibly the greatest there's ever been in the history of England. My dad studied poaching like a scientist.'

  'Is that so?'

  'I mean it. I really mean it.'

  'I believe you.'

  'Do you know,' he said, 'my dad used to keep a whole flock of prime cockerels in the back yard purely for experimental purposes.'

  'Cockerels?'

  'That's right. And whenever he thought up some new stunt for catching a pheasant, he'd try it out on a cockerel first to see how it worked. That's how he discovered about raisins. It's also how he invented the horsehair method.'

  Claud paused and glanced over his shoulder as though to make sure that there was nobody listening. 'Here's how it's done,' he said. 'First you take a few raisins and you soak them overnight in water to make them nice and plump and juicy. Then you get a bit of good stiff horsehair and you cut it up into half-inch lengths. Then you push one of these lengths of horsehair through the middle of each raisin so that there's about an eighth of an inch of it sticking out on either side. You follow?'

  'Yes.'

  'Now - the old pheasant comes along and eats one of these raisins. Right? And you're watching him from behind a tree. So what then?'

  'I imagine it sticks in his throat.'

  'That's obvious, Gordon. But here's the amazing thing. Here's what my dad discovered. The moment this happens, the bird never moves his feet again! He becomes absolutely rooted to the spot, and there he stands pumping his silly neck up and down just like it was a piston, and all you've got to do is walk calmly out from the place where you're hiding and pick him up in your hands.'

  'I don't believe that.'

  'I swear it.' he said. 'Once a pheasant's had the horsehair you can fire a rifle in his ear and he won't even jump. It's just one of those unexplainable little things. But it takes a genius to discover it.'

  He paused, and there was a gleam of pride in his eye now as he dwelt for a moment or two upon the memory of his father, the great inventor.

  'So that's Method Number One,' he said. 'Method Number Two is even more simple still. All you do is you have a fishing-line. Then you bait the hook with a raisin and you fish for the pheasant just like you fish for a fish. You pay out the line about fifty yards and you lie there on your stomach in the bushes waiting till you get a bite. Then you haul him in.'

  'I don't think your father invented that one.'

  'It's very popular with fishermen,' he said, choosing not to hear me. 'Keen fishermen who can't get down to the seaside as often as they want. It gives them a bit of the old thrill. The only trouble is it's rather noisy. The pheasant squawks like hell as you haul him in, and then every keeper in the wood comes running.'

  'What is Method Number Three?' I asked.

  'Ah,' he said. 'Number Three's a real beauty. It was the last one my dad ever invented before he passed away.'

  'His final great work?'

  'Exactly, Gordon. And I can even remember the very day it happened, a Sunday morning it was, and suddenly my dad comes into the kitchen holding a huge white cockerel in his hands and he says, "I think I've got it." There's a little smile on his face and a shine of glory in his eyes and he comes in very soft and quiet and he puts the bird down right in the middle of the kitchen table and he says, "By God, I think I've got a good one this time." "A good what?" Mum says, looking up from the sink. "Horace, take that filthy bird off my table." The cockerel has a funny little paper hat over its head, like an ice-cream cone upside down, and my dad is pointing to it proudly. "Stroke him," he says. "He won't move an inch." The cockerel starts scratching away at the paper hat with one of its feet, but the hat seems to be stuck on with glue and it won't come off.' "No bird in the world is going to run away once you cover up his eyes," my dad says, and he starts poking the cockerel with his finger and pushing it around on the table, but it doesn't take the slightest bit of notice. "You can have this one," he says, talking to Mum. "You can kill it and dish it up for dinner as a celebration of what I have just invented." And then straight away he takes me by the arm and marches me quickly out the door and off we go over the fields and up into the big forest the other side of Haddenham which used to belong to the Duke of Buckingham, and in less than two hours we get five lovely fat pheasants with no more trouble than it takes to go out and buy them in a shop.'

  Claud paused for breath. His eyes were huge and moist and dreamy as they gazed back into the wonderful world of his youth.

  'I don't quite follow this,' I said. 'How did he get the paper hats over the pheasants' heads up in the woods?'

  'You'd never guess it.'

  'I'm sure I wouldn't.'

  'Then here it is. First of all you dig a little hole in the ground. Then you twist a piece of paper into the shape of a cone and you fit this into the hole, hollow end upwards, like a cup. Then you smear the paper cup all roun